And apart from the national pavilions on the Expo site, the city also hopes to draw crowds with a rich cultural program.

The national pavilions are signposts pointed in the wrong direction.

A number of the national pavilions remain structurally incomplete, while many more have yet to receive their contents.

The gardens are the largest (and most labour intensive) of all the national pavilions.

The 111 national pavilions have their own offerings, some of them lavish.

The idea was that although the national pavilions were like individual flowers they needed to be connected to the whole via branches and a trunk.

Free tickets are available at the national pavilions.

In 2011 there were 34,500 participants at the event, representing 1,100 companies and 50 countries, 22 of which had their own stands or national pavilions.

The weight used to be more on the national pavilions.

The next morning I went for breakfast to the vast central cafeteria which served all the national pavilions.